l%6 LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.

Minstrel took a bard's licence in speaking of its grandeur. A thick-
walled square tower, incorporated with the modern building, was
part of the old castle, built, as an inscription above the door records,
in 1571-6. This was after the date of the imagined events of the
Lay. The Branksome Tower in which they are laid was burnt and
destroyed during the devastation of the Borders under the Earl of
Sussex in 1570, in revenge for a raid upon England led by the '
Scotts and the Kerrs, who had combined for once against the
common enemy. The Sir Walter Scott of that time should corre-
spond with the boy-heir of Buccleuch in the poem.

1. 8. idlesse, an artificial archaism, an A.S. word with an 0. Jr.
ending. Chaucer uses idilntsse.

1. i3*4&TL3hy floor. Rushes strewn on the floor served the pur-
pose of carpets in those days. The English were later than the
continental nations hi adopting the fashion of carpets. That they
strewed their floors with hay was remarked by foreign travellers as
a barbarism in the age of Elizabeth,^

Stanza III. Scott quotes the authority of Satchells for the
splendour of the establishment at Branksome:

*No baron was better served in Britain;
The barons of Buckleugh they kept their call,
Four and twenty gentlemen in their hall,
All being of his name and kin;
Each two had a servant to wait upon them
Before supper and dinner, most renowned,
The bells rung and the trumpets sowned.'
There were, besides, twenty-four 'pensioners,' 'younger brothers of
ancient families,' holding lands from Buccleuch for Border service,
not resident at Branksome, but 'ready on all occasions, when his
honour pleased cause to advertise them.' Scott, it will be observed,
has improved upon the earlier poet of the clan in his picture of the
baronial grandeur of the Chief.

Stanza IV, Scott uses the bard's licence to make romantic
heroes men of more than mortal mould. If a real mediaeval knight
had worn steel harness day and night, he would have been of small
use in the field. The heavy helmet was generally borne by page or
squire even on the way to battle, or in traversing an enemy's country.
See Canto III, st. iii. The whole of this picture of knights on the
watch is too melodramatically romantic, especially the drinking of
the wine through the barred helmet, Border raids, of course, were
sudden, tut not so sudden that the warriors could not get warning